Most people in the workplace are motivated by rewards like promotions, salary raises, or bonuses. But there is an often-overlooked motivator in the workplace that can be equally powerful—helping others.
Research shows that people who love helping others in the workplace have better well-being. They do their work more effectively and achieve more in their career.¹ It is no wonder that researchers found that helping others is beneficial to both the helper and the recipient.²
This article explains how helping others at work enhances personal motivation, which leads to improved work performance and greater career success.
The Benefits of Helping Others in the Workplace
When employees take time to support and assist each other, the impact causes ripples that go far beyond just completing their tasks. Here are a few ways that helping others can create an inspiring workplace.
Fosters a Positive Work Environment
Helping and supporting others at work leads to a light, positive work atmosphere. People who receive help feel safe and supported. This allows them to be transparent and accountable, knowing that they can ask for help. With a positive ambiance, people will have less sources of negativity in the workplace. Therefore, everyone will be inspired to work more productively.
Read more: How Company Culture Drives Growth Beyond Metrics
Builds Stronger Relationships
When team members help each other out to solve problems and achieve goals, they create a strong sense of community. Everyone gains a sense of trust, open communication, and mutual respect. Each one of them can count on each other. As a result, everyone is driven to give their best efforts because they know they’re all in it together.
Related article: 5 Effective Approaches to Connect with the Younger Workforce
Increases Job Satisfaction
Research shows that people who consider their work as helping others find their jobs much more meaningful.³ Not all jobs are about advocacy or altruism, but all jobs require helping and collaborating with someone else. When people find more satisfaction in their jobs, they are more motivated to do better work.
Boosts Potential
Promotions and raises remain powerful motivators for all kinds of employees. People who help others succeed are often the ones who know more about the job. Also, they most likely have good people skills, communication skills, and leadership skills. It is no surprise when employers and managers spot people who are helpful in the workplace—and quickly consider them for higher positions.
Reasons You Might Hesitate to Help Others
Even after understanding how helping others can be beneficial, you may hesitate to do so. Try to understand why people forgo helping so you can address the root cause.
Lack of Necessary Skills
Many people do not help simply because they do not know how. If you ever face a situation where technical skills prevent you from helping, think of other ways of offering assistance. Maybe you can listen to your workmate discuss the problem and ask a superior yourself. You can also learn how to solve the problem together with your colleague so he or she will feel your support. For future opportunities, try upskilling as well so you can help more people!
Read more: Skyrocket Your Career: 5 Must-Try Upskilling Methods
Poor Social Connections
Lacking deeper relationships with workmates should not hinder anyone from wanting to help. In fact, it should encourage them to do so. Helping others, even those you are not close with, can only improve things for everyone. The best-case scenario is you make a work friend. Otherwise, simply helping another person is already a reward—plus all the great benefits it offers.
Burnout
A more serious reason people refrain from helping workmates is feeling too tired and unmotivated to do anything. Helping others is not a sure-fire solution to burnout. It might even seem like doing so will worsen the situation. But as mentioned above, helping others provides deeper meaning in life and improves work culture, among many other great benefits. Maybe helping others when you can’t help yourself is the answer that you’re looking for.
6 Ways to Help Others at Work
What if you want to help, but you don’t know where to begin? Here are a few practical ways to make helping others part of your regular work routine.
1. Use your skills and experience to help out.
Helping workmates can mean volunteering to do something beyond your role. This is not about unpaid work. It’s about going the extra mile because you want to help a colleague who needs assistance that you can provide. For example, you work in highly technical jobs like machine operation and production maintenance. You can volunteer to share your knowledge about rules or safety protocols with new hires.
2. Provide constructive feedback.
Work evaluations are beneficial to everyone. You don’t have to wait for the annual reports before you help your workmates succeed by commenting on how they can improve. The best feedback is specific, constructive, and focused on behaviors rather than personal traits. For example, instead of saying “You’re not doing a good job,” it’s more helpful to say, “I noticed the recent reports missed a few key details—let’s work together to ensure all information is included next time.”
3. Offer financial help.
You don’t have to be wealthy to provide financial support that will be significant to others. Most of the time, people just need a little help to get by. Aside from lending, helping workmates financially could include contributing to workplace fundraising efforts, supporting charity drives, or assisting with work-related costs when possible. Even small contributions can make people feel supported, making a big difference in their workplace productivity and satisfaction.
4. Help people meet each other.
Networking within your workplace is a powerful way to offer help while building connections. You can start by being curious about colleagues’ backgrounds, strengths, interests, and career goals. Don’t hesitate to mention or introduce them in a positive way while talking with people from other teams or business locations. You never know who’s looking for who. Your workmates will be grateful that you connected them to opportunities that can help them succeed in their career.
Read more: Staffing Firms Are Your Ticket to Better Opportunities
5. Listen and empathize.
Lending an empathetic ear might seem like a small gesture, but the numbers show a very different perspective. Empathy in the workplace leads to higher work efficiency, creativity, job satisfaction, innovation, and revenue by an astounding 83 to 88 percent.⁴ Listen to the rants of your fellow administrative assistants or share the emotions of your fellow warehouse staff. You’ll be surprised by how much empathy can make things better both for them and for yourself.
6. Show up.
Finally, simply showing up when you’re needed helps many people in the workplace. In times when your company might be facing big challenges and you don’t think your role can do much, you can boost everyone’s morale just by being there in meetings or routine work. You can even be present outside the office, maybe at lunches or during those short conversations before and after work hours. Simply being there makes people feel that you are already helping them.
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References
- Liao, Huiyao, et al. “Feeling Good, Doing Good, and Getting Ahead: A Meta-analytic Investigation of the Outcomes of Prosocial Motivation at Work.” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 148, no. 3–4, Mar. 2022, pp. 158–98, https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fbul0000362.
- Weinstein, Netta, and Richard M. Ryan. “When Helping Helps: Autonomous Motivation for Prosocial Behavior and Its Influence on Well-Being for the Helper and Recipient.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 98, no. 2, Feb. 2010, pp. 222–244, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41087502_When_Helping_Helps_Autonomous_Motivation_for_Prosocial_Behavior_and_Its_Influence_on_Well-Being_for_the_Helper_and_Recipient.
- Allan, Blake A., et al. “Helping Others Increases Meaningful Work: Evidence from Three Experiments.” Journal of Counseling Psychology, vol. 65, no. 2, Mar. 2018, pp. 155–165, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316864837_Helping_Others_Increases_Meaningful_Work_Evidence_From_Three_Experiments.
- Hemmerdinger, Jennifer. “New EY US Consulting Study: Employees Overwhelmingly Expect Empathy in the Workplace, but Many Say It Feels Disingenuous.” EY, 30 Mar. 2023, https://www.ey.com/en_us/newsroom/2023/03/new-ey-us-consulting-study.https://www.ey.com/en_us/newsroom/2023/03/new-e
